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Nils French and his fiancee Kaylene Campbell live in a time machine. Drop the solid brass knocker on the front door, turn the glass doorknob, step inside the small, six-room bungalow and you're back in the 1930s, almost.

It took two years and a lot of work, says French, a soldier posted to Edmonton in 2008. But every time he walks in the front door, turns one of those elegant glass doorknobs or steps into the stylish black and white bathroom, "I'm really happy that we did it that way."

Two weeks after returning from nine months in Afghanistan, French with Campbell bought the 1000-square-foot house in Edmonton.

The couple wasn't looking for a fixer-upper, but the location was right — on a tree-lined street, a block and a half from the river valley — and so was the price.

The house had been a rental property for several years and had been neglected, "but there was a bunch of good things about it," French says. It had character.

There were cove ceilings (arch-domed ceilings with no sharp corners), solid fir baseboards, a fireplace with an old gas-radiant heater, plaster walls, a turret window in the front room, and a curved wall in the bathroom.

City records show the house was built in 1951, but French thinks the date is a "hybrid" between the original construction and an addition put on the back.

The house was probably built in 1937, based on newspapers found when the large heavy cast iron tub in the bathroom was removed during renovations, he says. A master bedroom and a hallway leading from the kitchen to the back entry were added later.

Besides its good points, the house also had ceilings yellowed with smoke and age, parquet floors throughout the place that creaked and were worn in a lot of places, plaster walls that needed smoothing out, and an interior design that was a mishmash of 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1980s and more recent styles than that.

The bathroom needed a facelift and so did the kitchen.

"It needed a lot of work, but we had the time to put into it," French says.

"I think we thought we could get the whole thing done before we moved in, have the contractors work for a solid month, then I would come in and complete everything over a couple of weekends," French remembers, making them both smile at their over-optimism.

Shortly after buying the place and hiring a contractor for a month to do the bulk of the work, French and Campbell took a trip to visit her sister in the States. They brought along pictures of existing fixtures and hardware in hopes of finding missing or matching pieces or authentic replacements or reproductions on their travels.

While in Portland, Oregon, French stumbled on Hippo Hardware, a giant three-storey mecca for home restoration.

There they found two ribbed-glass, ceiling-light globes to match the two already in the house; a vintage brass chandelier perfect for their dining room; glass door knobs to put on all the doors; and brass handles for the kitchen cupboards, which French antiqued himself to match the black tile they put on the floor.

What they couldn't find at Hippo, they tracked down on eBay and Kijiji.

French figures they've spent $35,000 to $40,000 on improvements. And although almost everything that needs doing is now done, "the work could truly never end," he says.

Ironically, French and Campbell won't be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour for much longer, as French is months away from a new posting in the United States.

They'll be renting there while French works on a master's degree, but they'd buy another character house in a heartbeat, once he's posted back in Canada, they say. Only, next time, the previous owner will have had to do all the work, French says, smiling.

czdeb@edmontonjournal.com

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